The brutal attack on a doctor from Barinas, Venezuela: “We are from the FBL guerrilla and you cannot be a candidate for mayor”

The doctor Harold José Maldonado Escorihuela (54 years old) arrived at his small clinic, where his home is also located, in the Arismendi parish, a municipality of the same name, in the state of Barinas. On Friday, September 3, when he opened the clinic where he has his office, he found two young people whom he prepared to help. Minutes later They identified themselves as members of the FBL / FPLN, threatened him with death, beat him, and warned him to withdraw his candidacy for mayor.

Actions like these are not new, although in Venezuela it has been a more silent action than the one that occurred in Colombia, where the guerrillas have acted to get certain candidates out of the way, some even assassinating them. In the Andean and plains areas of Venezuela it has also happened in the past that some favorite candidates have been threatened not to run.

In the case of the Arismendi municipality of Barinas, The FBL / FPLN seeks to give an advantage to the Chavez candidate Misael Moreno who, although he did not win the primary elections, was imposed, being a very weak candidacy. The doctor Harold Maldonado, as a candidate for the Opposition, is ahead of Moreno and for this reason the guerrillas are trying to get him to withdraw his candidacy.

Doctor Maldonado Escorihuela told Infobae that the two boys, who said they belonged to “los boliches”, were found waiting for him at the doors of the clinic, where they had parked an orange and black mountain bike. “They didn’t have hoods. They wore jackets. They asked me if we were doing laboratory tests and I answered that at that time no, that the bioanalyst was coming on Sunday ”.

One of them told Dr. Maldonado that he was in pain and that he could take care of it. “I said yes and opened the office. Minutes later one of them took out a 9mm pistol and the other a mini huzi; I know about weapons because years ago I was in the military. I asked if they were going to rob me and they said no, what they wanted was to talk to me ”.

Can’t go on

Dr. Maldonado belongs to the Primero Justicia party. “They told me that they knew that I was the strongest candidate for mayor and that they came to ask me to withdraw my candidacy.. I answered that I was working for a better Venezuela, so that my daughters could live well and their children too ”.

The young people argued to Dr. Maldonado that he could not insist on his electoral aspirations. “They told me that we should continue as we were, that we were fine. They insisted that if I did not give up my intentions they would kill my family, my wife and my two daughters, and lastly me so that I would see that the threat was serious. “

When asked if they identified or mentioned the organization to which they belonged, says the doctor Maldonado Escorihuela “yes, they identified themselves as members of the FBL”, he assures, while remembering “the accent they had when speaking was distinctly Colombian ”.

Dr. Maldonado assures that the two young people showed him photographs of the house of his parents who live in another state, also of his mother-in-law’s house. “They insisted that I take them to my house to speak with my wife, but I flatly refused, arguing that I would not subject my family to that. They told me that to show me that they were serious I should do what they asked because next time there would be consequences ”.

“At that moment, the one with the gun hit me with the gun, a blow to the face, at the level of the right cheekbone, and then with the cannon he hit me on the head, which required five stitches per the wound it caused me, ”he said.

The FBL

To the guerrillas in Venezuela, be it Colombian or Venezuelan, the common inhabitants They say “the rubber feet” or the “rubber boots”, but to the Bolivarian Liberation Forces (FBL) that for a few years have been called Patriotic National Liberation Forces (FPLN), for 20 years, they have also They call them “los boliches” because they identify with the Bolivarian Revolution.

The “leg and rubber”, who always wear rubber boots for the mud, It is a Venezuelan guerrilla, which has had among its combatants many Venezuelan and Colombian youth and adolescents. Its maximum commander is alias El Flaco and although the organization has had several divisions, the fraction that remained on the ground and with the weapons, although not with the initials, is the FBL / FPLN, established mainly in Apure, Barinas, Táchira and Guárico.

That organization’s civil wing is the Bolívar y Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ), which has mayors, regional and national deputies, councilors and for the last eleven years they had the protection of the Apure state governor, Colonel Ramón Alonso Carrizalez Rengifo.

In the rural area of ​​the Arismendi municipality of Barinas, alias El Zancudo is recognized as the local commander of the FBL / FPLN. For years, the FBL waged a fierce war against the National Liberation Army (ELN) whom they tried to expel from the territory on the grounds of being a Colombian guerrilla.

In the case of the Arismendi municipality of Barinas, unlike other places, the guerrillas are not seen in the town, but in the hamlets, including in other parishes and municipalities. In the towns of Barinas it is always known that the farmers who hide the guerrillas or protect them, many of them receive mutual benefits.

Arismendi has four parishes: the capital Arismendi, Guadarrama, La Unión and San Antonio de Las Flores, but it is a very extensive territory, of more than 7 thousand people, more than some states. The FBL has always had an active life in San Antonio de las Flores, which borders Apure, Apurito, where they mostly live.

Dr. Harold Maldonado left the municipality after the incident with the two young men who threatened him, to be treated because the head injury warrants special examinations, the teams of which are not available in that municipality.